Jumpstarted
by Tallemy
Summary: After raking up some debt by contantly breaking the gadgets Toolshed provided to him, Mysterion is stuck with helping the wannabe DIY superhero on his quest to repair the public property at a remote park. But his life is never simple, because Inspector Broflovski appears even without a calling card and makes it his sole goal to hunt down the accursed phantom thief! [K2]


As the veil of night slowly enveloped the park, the lamps that framed the walkways urged its visitors to leave and invited a completely new kind of public in the form of runners and dog walkers. Soon their place would be taken up by pink-cloud hazed lovers and underground businessmen, people who hoped to hide away from the eyes of public… as well as two men who were enthusiastically bickering over a half-painted dark brown bench.

One of them was a regular visitor, Toolshed. A DIY enthusiast who grew bitter over the fact that the mayor and the government did nothing for their environment and started a private action of renewing the old and often hazardous parts of town. His selfless job included installing new bus stops, repairing roads, planting trees, changing light bulbs and in this case, repainting and repairing benches, switching the rotten boards with new ones, then repainting the whole thing again.

The other was however, a man who wore the alias of Mysterion. The notorious phantom thief, who gained quite the attention after his recent heists, nonviolent methods and witty comebacks that came naturally even when he was held at gunpoint by the whole South Park police department. Also a person who was definitely not dressed for the occasion as he refused to let go of his trademark cape and the purple attire. Even if he only came out of hiding only to fulfill a debt, there was an image to keep! An image that was smeared with smaller paint splotches all over his trousers, brown lines that kept appearing as his cape fell over his shoulders and touched the freshly painted parts of the bench.

Yet, for the sake of peace, he endured the pain of ruining his clothes and kept his negative, snarky comments to himself.

What put the final nail in the coffin was Toolshed's annoying music playing from the boombox he attached to the vigilante's belt. A strange mix of chillhop and the occasional dying songs of a sad guitarist, who usually wanted to die for the love of his life, other times, he would jump between topics about terrible weather, his bad mood and a taco he'd eaten on a sleepless saturday evening.

Themes and melodies that could make Mysterion scream in agony, yet he gritted his teeth, trying to focus on his task. Letting the excess paint dribble back in the bucket, then putting up a layer of paint with light strokes. Extremely light strokes, because the last time he tried to let off some steam like that, Toolshed spent almost an hour complaining about his brute techniques and Mysterion ruining his expensive tools the moment the brush touched the wood...

_Focus, focus, _he told to himself as he worked.

_Focus!_

He did his best to lock out the sound, but when the hoarse voice of the singer started screaming something about the burning pain of unrequited love and the burning passion that burned hot within them in the cold nights that burned their skin something snapped within Mysterion.

"Can't we listen to something else?"

"Why? I love this song," Toolshed complained, his hands never stopping as he dipped his own brush in the bucket near his feet.

"The singer just said the word burning at least 5 times in a row and one of them does not even made sense in the context of the sentence!"

"That's your problem. For once, don't listen to the words just enjoy the music and paint."

"Don't act like some kind of modern era Bob Ross." Mysterion scoffed. "It does not suit you."

"I could say the same, Killjoy. Thinking too hard on indie songs is not really something you would do, yet there you are."

Mysterion did not miss the smirk that flashed through Toolshed's face. As if the man finally connected all the numbers on a dot-connecting game.

"So the Inspector finally started to rub off on you." the man hummed to himself.

Biting back a snarky remark and a smirk that threatened to wiggle its way to his lips, Mysterion only furrowed his brows and pushed the brush onto the wood.

"Remind me, why am I here again?" Mysterion muttered to himself.

"To repay your debt by helping me. Those gadgets you broke on your latest heist were not from the dollar store, you know."

"I told you money is no problem," the phantom thief complained as drops of paint landed on his shoes.

"And I told you that this helps me more than money. Now get back to paint before someone realizes we are not supposed to be here tonight."

Toolshed was right. While he was a local goody-two-shoes, some kind of Spiderman without superpowers, everything he did for the community fell under vandalism in the eyes of the law. They couldn't even plant a tree without a permit where the government gave them the exact location and type of the future sapling. And by law, illegally planted trees were to be removed by the authorities.

However, there was a loophole nobody was prepared for. Public outrage. The news of the government removing and ruining Toolshed's work travelled faster through social media than the accusation of vandalism.

Simply, it was not a crime if it made their life better.

The song in the background ended on a soft note, almost blending into the sounds of the night, and he winced slightly when suddenly gospel music swam in, and surprisingly powerful medley of guitar, piano and drums shook the air around them. It reminded him of Queen…

Before he could ask for the name of the band, Toolshed's face beamed as he turned up the music.

"Oh look, it's your song!"

Mysterion only realized it around the second refrain what Toolshed meant by "his" song, and the blond man was about to throw an entire bucket of brown paint towards the cheeky idiot.

He did not know yet, that a certain redhead entered through the gates of the park and took his way toward their general direction thanks to Toolshed's boombox…

Kyle Broflovski wearily took the steps on the steep road, as he did his best to keep his mouth shut in order to suppress a yawn. Pursuing Mysterion always enjoyed priority in his life, but being on field all the time meant that he had copious amount of paperwork piling up on his desk, forcing him to spend several long nights at the office being chased around by the cleaning staff. They had enough of him taking a new mug whenever he decided to make some coffee in the middle of the night.

Although, he couldn't really complain. At least, this time the casefiles were about the recent robberies committed by the Coon so at least the perpetrator part was given. However the problems started with the quantity of these incidents. Ten in less than a month. And while his modus operandi was also simple and primitive, Kyle couldn't shake off the feeling that there was some kind of pattern that needed to be unveiled. After all, nobody starts making ruckus and then demands to be treated as the red-caped hero who actually saved the day.

The Coon had to have some kind of motivation, a goal and if he could find out what it is, when he would be able to track him down, and maybe prevent another robbery. Maybe…

As a way to keep himself awake, he tried to go through his memories, remembering even the personal encounters he had with the criminal.

It took him at least ten minutes before he realized that his subconscious took him to the park. It was the shorter route back home, true. But at 2am this was definitely not the safest place to pass through. Sighing to himself, he decided to continue his walk, paying extra attention to his surroundings and any kind of abnormal actions.

Justice never sleeps, after all.

As he neared the middle of the park, de realized how right this statement was.

At first, he only heard energetic music playing from the distance, however once he'd walked closer in the shadow of the trees, he noticed two figures standing next to a bench, circling around it like lions ready to jump at each other. He was about to shout at them and send them on their way when he realized how familiar the figures looked. While the man wearing the black overalls was as normal as it could be, he couldn't look past the velvety dark-purple cape and the lighter shades of the suit.

Even at first glance, he could see that these were people dressed up as vigilantes.

Then a hearty laugh echoed through the park and for a moment his breath hitched as his entire body was shaken out of its drowsy state. Not the type of reaction anyone would expect from a detective who sacrificed so much of his free time to put a criminal behind bars. But then again, it's not an everyday occurrence to hear and see the notorious phantom thief act like a human, laughing with an acquaintance and wait… Was that a paintbrush in his hand?

His legs moved faster and before his brain could register the crime unfolding before his eyes, he was already running toward the duo.

"Both of you! You are under arrest for vandalism!"

As the men dropped their tools and broke into a run leaving everything behind, he didn't miss Toolshed groaning angrily at Mysterion.

"I soooo knew it! Are you some kind of detective lamp?!"

"If I am, then Broflovski is a really pissed off moth who wants to tear the lamp apart!"

"Well, good luck with Mothrovski, then." the other, Toolshed shrugged and took a swift turn to the opposite direction, disappearing in the darkness provided by the branches, when the music finally stopped Mysterion knew that he was ditched for good.

As the thief took the turn to the right, following the stone-pavement, he noticed that Kyle was growing sluggish and his steps were becoming heavier, slowing down, he turned toward the young inspector and beamed at him.

"I don't mean to be rude, Inspector, I definitely enjoy your undivided attention, but isn't it time you gave me some space? Some alone time with the boys?"

"Don't make me laugh. I'll give you alone time in prison. Might as well put Toolshed in there too!" Kyle shouted back at him, urging his legs to follow the thief.

"Toolshed can stay out of my cell, we all know you would visit me every day," Mysterion winked at him and jumped over a low hedge.

"Just to check that you are still there," Kyle stated, however as he tried to follow the man, his legs got tangled into branches and he fell on his side with a soft thud. His uncharacteristic action seemed to surprise Mysterion because after several meters the phantom thief stopped and gave him a worried glance. The feeling was short-lived, because the detective stood up in no time and rushed toward him with shaky steps.

"Why are you so persistent? Shouldn't you be at home?!" Mysterion snapped at him, but Kyle barely had any energy left to come up with an answer.

At this point, he just tailed after him, like a homing rocket, focusing all of his strength into his legs so they wouldn't get tangled by his next step.

He chased Mysterion through a playground, climbed a playhouse, run up a hill only to take the steps down on the other side of a small museum. Kyle had his share of exercise and the worst part was that Mysterion was clearly playing with him. Each time he let the inspector catch up to him, only to quicken his steps and leave him behind.

After an hour of playing cops and robbers, they reached the shallow fountain-pond in the middle of the park. A fairly common place for mothers to meet and let their kids play around in the ankle high water, where occasionally pillars of water shot into the sky. Using the decorational stepping stones as landing spots, Mysterion laughed and hopped through the large pond, without getting a single drop of water on his costume.

In the next moment, a loud splash thundered through the area, followed by a started yelp.

The detective was finally off his case for the day.

However, instead of leaving him there, Mysterion hid behind the bushes and decided to keep an eye on the red haired inspector. Something was terrible off with him today, and while he knew that Kyle could fend for himself his conscience did not let him leave. Invisible hands grabbed his legs and kept him in spot.

After the initial shock, and gasping from sudden contact with freezing water, Kyle stood up and dragged himself out to the grass. However, instead of going home, he dropped his thing overcoat to the ground, kicked it once, then twice, before his body hit the ground again and he refused to get up.

Minutes passed in silence.

Time slowly drags itself forward, but Kyle just lays there motionless, like a toy car that ran out of batteries in the middle of a racing track.

_So I was not wrong about him looking exhausted_, Mysterion thought to himself as he walked closer to the young inspector, collecting his soaked dark coat on the way.

"Now, let's get you back home before you arrest yourself for sleeping in the park." he smiled to himself.

He woke up to his phone blasting some incomprehensible music, each strum taking him farther and farther away from dreamland, eventually dragging him back to the land of the living. Once the sounds merged into words, then formed full sentences Kyle thought back to what happened last night. He remembered feeling angry and disheartened, then giving up chasing Mysterion after he fell into a pond.

Then he fell asleep.

In the park, where it's technically illegal to spend the night.

However, by some miracle he woke up in his own bed, wearing one of the quirky tees Stan got him… and fresh underwear.

He did not change clothes.

He barely had any energy to chase Mysterion around…

Heat rushed to his face after he realized what happened, but instead of getting angry and tossing his phone against the wall to stop the music, Kyle just buried his face back into the pillow, letting out an exasperated sigh while his heart did a somersault in his ribcage. This was so wrong on so many levels! Who in their right mind would think it's a bright idea to let themselves in without invitation? And just how much did the thief see?! No, this is not what he should be thinking about, because that bastard had no right to even enter his home in the first place!

Too bad, he could not suffocate himself with his pillow without his survival instincts kicking in because he was not sure how to face that bastard after all of this. However, before he could've acted on this resolution the coffee machine in his kitchen let out a loud whirl as it turned on and started grinding the beans for a morning coffee.

_So the culprit is still there!, _he thought to himself, trying to get over the fact that any kind of domesticity with the person he wanted to put behind bars is wrong and straight up unacceptable. That little flutter his heart did was nothing more than a momentary resonation from the anger he felt.

And the disheartened drop in his stomach that followed when he did not see the thief in his kitchen was definitely not the sign of him missing that familiar purple cape and that cheeky smile. Not in a thousand years! He won't fall for these tricks and the pavlovian reverse psychology! At the same time, it would be foolish to deny that a smirk appeared on his lips as he walked over to the machine to be greeted by his blue mug with the picture of a badly drawn raccoon.

Right next to it lay the obvious sign of the illegal intruder, a calling card addressed to him. Sipping into the pure black coffee, he picked up the card and read it as he walked to the window.

_"If you won't start going to bed at a reasonable time I'll start stealing your cereal._

_P.S. I'd be raiding your fridge if you actually kept some food on yourself. How are you still alive?! Shredded wheat is a sin against humanity!_

_ (Turn the card)_

Snorting at Mysterion's bitching about his cereal of choice and general lifestyle, Kyle did as he was told and flipped the small card to the other side, greeted by tiny letters squashed together to form a smaller novel.

" _Just to clarify before you arrest me for sexual harassment: Yes, I did take your clothes off. Yes, even your underwear. No, I did not peek. I covered you with a blanket and went in blind. I did not take advantage of the situation and left your privates untouched. But I did tamper with your coffee machine, so check the timer before you leave for work. It might start making coffee at random times. If I knew that chasing me around pays so well, I'd probably try to catch myself._

_Phantom Thief Mysterion" _

"You will be so arrested the next time we meet," Kyle mumbled into his coffee, as a strange kind of emotion flashed through his eyes. The excitement of a new challenge, jump-started by two idiots painting benches. However, just as he came to some kind of newfound resolution, the coffee machine on the counter started whirring loudly as the program restarted itself in order to brew coffee not less than ten minutes after its last attempt. Just then, the music started playing again, turning his morning into a chaotic music video.

For a phantom thief, Mysterion was certainly clumsy when it came to technology…

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Originally written for K2 Week 2019! Inspiration just hit me in the nape right after I was looking through my playlists and I went "Whoa, this song actually reminds me of them" and that led to the infinite loop of Jumpstarted by Jukebox the Ghost.

Also I thought this would be a great time to practice how to write their dynamic once I start publishing the multi-chaptered phantom thief AU. =w=


End file.
